Clockwork Dream

Last night I had a dream where my body was no longer human.  Instead it was made up up of clockwork mechanisms.  But these clockwork mechanisms were broken.  I could function, barely, but I couldn't function properly.  This being approached me and said that if I fulfilled certain quests, then my body would be magically repaired.

I tried and tried to fulfill the quests the being set me, but always, I failed.  I failed because my broken clockwork body simply couldn't do what needed to be done.  I kept telling the being that because my body was broken, I couldn't do the quests properly, but the being just kept insisting that the only way to get my body repaired was to complete the quests.

I kept trying and kept trying, but eventually my body broke down so badly that I couldn't even try anymore, and I lay there broken and crying.

I woke up as the powers that be were lowering my broken body into a burning cauldron to reduce my parts back to molten metal.

Despite the rather cool steampunk imagery, this was not a pleasant dream.  My "real" body is broken and has been for some time.  I've been almost continually sick or injured for almost five years now.  Most recently, I tripped and fell while trying to fence off a part of my pasture where the septic system had imploded.  I fell on one welded wire fence panel while carrying another panel.  I landed on the panel I tripped over, and the panel I was carrying fell on top of me.

I ended up covered in deep bruises, with two sprained ankles and a broken kneecap.  Just a hairline fracture of the patella, but still...  I also re-damaged and/or damaged more severely the muscles in my right hip and leg which were still not completely healed from being thrown from my horse two years ago.  The broken tailbone that I received then, has also still not completely healed.  (And may never completely heal, from what I've read online.) 

Over the past five years, I've gained 20 pounds of weight, and I've lost the physical fitness that I had worked to maintain all my life.  Every time, I get well enough to start exercising again and begin to trim down and tone up, something else happens.  I get whiplash, I have to have abdominal surgery, I get thrown from my horse, I come down with pleurisy, I trip and break my knee.  It seems as if I will never be allowed to get healthy again.

I'm tired.

I'm tired of being sick and injured and overweight and out of shape.

This dream is quite easy to understand in light of what's been going on in my life.  I just wish that it had had a happier ending.

Clockwork World by Vladimir Vitkovsky

Weird Dreams

The dream started when I was in a space suit aboard my friend Richard's space ship. I don't remember exactly how I ended up there, but it was as if they had simply come and gotten me one morning, threw me in a space suit and launched me into space. In the dream, I hadn't had a chance to take a shower before getting into the space suit and I felt all dirty and grimy. And weirdly, Richard's space ship was not aired up inside, so everybody had to stay inside their suits. Of course, you can't take a shower inside a space suit, so I knew I just had to stay dirty and grimy for as long as we were in space.

There were lots of people on board, about thirty or so. In my dream, I knew them all, but other than Richard, I don't actually know any of them in real life. But strangely, even with all these “friends” around, I still felt very isolated. The space suits effectively kept me from making contact with anyone else. I could talk to them, but I couldn't touch them. The suits were built in such a way that you couldn't even feel pressure through them.

Everyone else was very excited about being in space. I was sort of excited, but I also just felt grimy, out of place and alone, even in the midst of all these other people. And for some reason, one of the girls was trying to convince me to let her highlight my hair.

It was a very weird dream and I felt very grimy, unprepared and isolated.

Then it morphed into a sort of jousting tournament, renaissance festival sort of thing. I was supposed to be camping with my husband, but I couldn't find him. I kept wandering around trying to find him, but no one knew where he was. Someone finally told me where my tent was, and this insanely good looking young man led me and a woman and her child to our tents. The woman was falling all over herself because of how good looking the guy was, so I teased him about being treated differently because of his looks. He grinned and didn't seem to be bothered by her attention.

When he finally pointed out my tent, I went and checked and sure enough, Hubby's and my name were listed on it, but two girl's names were also listed. When I tried to get inside our tent, I ended up having to through two guy's tent where they were already asleep in a pair of hammocks. Then once I got to “my” tent, I had to get on my hands and knees and crawl into it. There was this heavy blanket like thing pressing down on my back as I crawled. It also hung down around me in such a way that I couldn't see where I was going.

I could hear the voices of the two girls that I supposed were the other two names on the tag in front of the tent, but I couldn't see anyone. I just had to keep crawling underneath that heavy blanket.

And then I woke up.

In both dreams, I felt lost, unprepared and isolated for the most part. I have to wonder what exactly is going on in my subconscious.

A Lie And A Dream

My husband lied to me on Wednesday. It was a lie of omission, but it was a very important omission and a nasty little lie. He did it to manipulate me into doing something that he knew I would not want to do if I knew the truth.

I feel so betrayed. 

He's lied to me before about little things. Mainly things to protect his own feelings. (He obviously doesn't feel the same way about lies that I do.) And I've let him get away with it. Because they were little things, and I could tell he was lying, and I thought he could tell that I knew he was lying. I guess maybe he couldn't. And so he thought that lying to me this time wouldn't be a big deal.

He was wrong.

I was FURIOUS. So furious that I could barely speak. My body was shaking and my throat was so tight, I could barely breath. My eyes burned and watered and didn't want to focus properly. My heart beat so hard that every pulse hurt. My mind might have been able to rationalize what he had done, but my body knew that I had been betrayed and responded with a massive panic attack. It took hours for my physical symptoms to calm down.

I'd trusted him. I'd trusted him more than I have ever trusted anyone else in my life. I thought that he would always look out for me, the way that I look out for him. I used to feel so safe and protected with him.

Not anymore.

Lately, I haven't been feeling safe and protected at all. In fact, I've been feeling sort of neglected. And I told him so several weeks ago. I told him that I felt that he had given up on me. That because my problems hadn't magically gone away simply because I was now in a loving relationship, that he had simply given up on even trying to help me when I was in one of my funks. He apologized and insisted that he hadn't given up, that he simply didn't know what to do to help me.

I don't expect him to “help” me. At least not in terms of healing me. But he used to give me lots of emotional support and attention when things were bad, and even though that didn't heal me, it did make me feel better. Now, I feel like he just says the words he thinks he should say, but he doesn't really mean them. He's just going through the motions. It doesn't feel real, and it leaves me feeling even more hopeless.

And now, he has betrayed me. 

This is only the second time that we've really fought in the eight years that we've been together.  My husband is generally a good man and usually there is no need to fight. If we disagree about something, we simply talk it out.  If it looks like it's going to be a real problem, I usually just give in.  I don't like fighting.  It triggers my anxiety attacks.   But this time, I was not going to just give in.  It wasn't a simple disagreement.  He used a lie of omission to MANIPULATE me. He KNOWS how I feel about manipulation.  And he did it anyway.  To get something that HE wanted, without any regard to my feelings.

I feel so alone.

Last night I had a dream that Foxfire, I and some older man were part of a military excursion in a middle eastern country. The man was in a big truck, Foxfire was driving a truck and horse trailer and I followed behind them on a little motor scooter. As we were leaving the place we'd spent the night before, I told them that I needed to fill up my scooter because I was on empty. But they didn't hear me, and they didn't stop.

I rolled my scooter over to a makeshift little booth that had a gas pump and started to fill it up. Then I realized that my purse with my id and money were all in the truck with Foxfire. I apologized to the woman running the booth, and told her that I didn't have any money, that my companions had taken everything I had and left me behind with nothing. She kindly allowed me to finish filling up my scooter, saying that surely they would come back for me, and I could pay her then.

I waited and waited, and they never came back for me. However, a group of Australian men and women showed up and they paid for my gas and hung around with me, waiting for my people to return. When night came and still no one had come back for me, they allowed me to bunk with them in the large crowded room that they and a number of middle easterners were sharing for the night. As I lay on the floor, one of the men in the group, curled up next to me and held me, comforting me. I had been feeling horribly alone and deserted by my husband, and this complete stranger made me feel safe and secure.

And then, of course, the middle eastern army attacked the building, looking for the Americans who had been there earlier. All the middle easterners that had been sharing the room with us ran out a window and were mostly killed. The Australians and I hid under the bunks. The man who was holding me protecting me with his body.

The next morning, we looked out the window and saw that the little booth where the woman had been so kind to me had been completely destroyed. Probably because she had helped the enemy American. I felt horribly guilty that her business had been ruined because of me.

And then I woke up.

Not exactly a subtle dream. My sense of self has been taken from me. I feel empty, abandoned and alone and must depend upon the kindness of strangers for my well-being. However, anyone who helps me is put in danger and/or destroyed.

Dreams – Packing Up to Go Home

A recurring theme in my dreams is that I'm packing up to go home, and I'm worried that I'm going to forget something and leave it behind. In my dream, I've been somewhere other than home for a while. Maybe a week, maybe a month, maybe a semester. Where I am varies a good bit, I may be vacationing alone or with others, it may be some sort of business trip, maybe I've been away to school. In the dream, I know exactly where I am, but that isn't really important, and I know I'm heading home, though “home” is never clearly defined. But it is very important that I not leave anything behind that I've taken with me or acquired on my trip. Sometimes in the dream, it's nearly time to go and I'm frantically searching for everything that belongs to me to get it packed. Other times, I just know that I need to leave soon and I'm worried about finding everything so that I don't leave anything important behind.

I have no idea what these dreams mean. I vaguely remember talking to my therapist about a "packing up" dream I had a while back, but I don't remember how she interpreted it. Anyone have any ideas?

Dreams -- Why No Blue?

This post was copied from an old blog that I no longer keep up. It was originally published on November 8, 2008.

Just a short weird little post.

I haven't worn blue since I can remember. I don't own a single blue piece of clothing. And I absolutely refuse to wear blue. My blue-phobia was recently brought to my attention while in the process of designing a t-shirt with someone that would be screen printed and sold to various people. She originally wanted to use blue ink for the design and I convinced her to use purple instead. I couldn't explain why I absolutely refused to create something that had blue on it. But I knew that if I did the shirt with blue ink that I would never wear it.

Last night I had a dream that I was wearing a blue shirt and I couldn't get it off. I was desperate to get out of it, but it wouldn't come off. I had to keep wearing it. I woke up very shaky and upset. Why would wearing a blue shirt make me so upset?

I think I finally figured it out. Blue = depressed. Duh! *slaps hand to head*
But even though I think I now understand my blue-phobia, I still refuse to wear blue.

Being "Good" Can Be Bad for You

This post was copied from an old blog that I no longer keep up. It was originally published on March 9, 2009.

I had a dream last night that made clear to me how I've been feeling. I know most people don't need their dreams to tell them how they feel, but I've always had problems acknowledging my own feelings. Blame it on my mother. That's pretty much where I place the blame for most of my psychological problems. (Well... I can probably lay a few problems on my father... and genetics may have something to do with it...) Anyway, even though I've been working for years to let myself be aware of and feel my emotions, I still have problems admitting to myself that I feel "negative" emotions. To paraphrase my mother,"A good person doesn't get angry. A good person doesn't feel jealous. A good person will take care of everyone else and not want anything for themselves." Thus taking care of yourself, if it in any way interferes with taking care of someone else, is selfish and bad. I have trouble believing that a "good" person could survive childhood, much less adulthood. But I tried to be “good” as hard as I could.

I tried so hard to be a "good" person that it nearly killed me. (My first attempted suicide at 15 was because I believed that I wasn't a good enough person to live.) Trying to be “good” definitely left me psychologically disabled. Yes, literally, disabled. I can't function in society. I can't hold down a job. I have extreme difficulty making and maintaining friends. And even small amounts of stress can cause physiological problems like migraines and stomach issues. Some days, I can function almost normally, but other days, just leaving the house to run errands is more than I can handle. So... see what trying to be a "good" person has done to me. Nevertheless, there is a part of me that still tries to be "good". Stuff that was programmed into you with your baby food isn't gotten rid of that easily. I still automatically put other's needs before my own. Although now "others" is limited to people I actually care for. My husband for example...

Before I go further, I need to explain something about my view of money. I inherited some money from my parents when they died. It's how I've survived since I can't hold down a job. I've learned to live VERY frugally. When I finally gave up on trying to hold down a job (I tried various sorts of jobs for over 10 years, never keeping a single one for more than a few months. Most didn't last more than 3 weeks.), I decided that I would just live as frugally as possible, and when I ran out of money, I would simply kill myself. At the time, I didn't have a husband or any really close friends, so my death wouldn't really cause anyone a problem. (See, even when considering suicide, I have to make sure that I'm not causing anyone else any inconvenience. To this day, I only have one close friend beside my husband and I think she would feel more guilty at not saving me rather than sad at the loss of a friend.) So... for many years, I equated spending money with impending death. I was VERY frugal.

To continue... My husband is horse mad. I like horses, but I'm not horse mad. But my husband has always wanted a horse and his own ranch to ride his horse around on. And since he is an experienced software engineer, you would think that he makes good money and wouldn't have to worry too much about job security. So I was willing to spend a good chunk of MY money to put a down payment on twenty acres of land so that we could build a house and a barn and live my husband's dream. I was also planning to use the money from the sale of MY house(best money I ever spent) to pay off most of the construction loan for building the new house. It seemed like a good plan. However...

My husband decided he wanted his own horse now rather than later. And since, I thought that we were doing well enough financially, I went along with him. We ended up rescuing a very nice horse that had been badly neglected. We only paid $20 to buy the horse, but we've since spent close to ten thousand on vet bills, boarding fees, tack and various horse related items. My husband was in charge of these things and he was the one who paid the credit card(I take care of the mortgage, insurance, property taxes, etc...), so I didn't realize how much money he'd been spending. He'd also been spending a lot on eating out for lunch and such. And just recently, he confessed to me that we had built up a huge amount of credit card debt.

Now, I'd already been living fairly frugally because I knew that building our new house was going to be very expensive. (and because I will probably always be frugal.) And even though I knew that my husband wasn't living all that frugally, I thought that it was okay. Since he was the one making the money, he should be allowed to spend a little more of it. (Although I had been trying for months to convince him to spend less on eating out.) I figured that it wouldn't be much longer until we could build our new home, sell my house, and things would be a bit easier financially. Now, I realize that it will be years before we get ourselves enough out of debt to even consider trying to get a construction loan. All my living frugally has accomplished was to let my husband take longer before telling me how bad our credit card debt was. Now I have to live even more frugally. And I have to be the dominant one(the nagging wife, which I DON'T want to be) and insist that my husband learn how to live frugally (which admittedly he seems to finally be beginning-- just beginning-- to understand).

So... my dream... My husband and I were at some sort of get together in an outdoor restaurant. I let everyone get their food before me and when I got to the counter, the serving girl told me they were out of brisket, all they had left was some bread. So, even though I was disappointed, I took the bread and ate it while everyone else, including my husband, enjoyed their brisket. Then it was time for desert. My friend D had brought some strawberries, vanilla cream and cake. I let D and my husband get their desert, and when I got to the counter, guess what... All they had left were a few little pieces of strawberry. No cream. No cake. And I had really wanted some vanilla cream. I lost it. I screamed and threw my purse across the courtyard. My husband, holding his VERY LARGE serving of desert in his hand came over, patted my shoulder and said,"It will be okay." and went back to eating his desert. I got even more angry and grabbed my purse strap and threw it over the wall surrounding the courtyard where everyone was eating. Then knowing that even though I was infuriated, I needed to get my purse back (because no one else was going to do it), I left the courtyard to find my way around the wall and get my purse. My husband actually followed me out, but instead of trying to go find my purse, he just wanted to get in his car and go home. I ran away from him and made my way through a crowded department store to the back alley behind the wall and started looking for my purse all by myself. I searched for hours, but never found it.

It's not exactly difficult to interpret this dream. I let my husband have everything he wants even though it means that there is nothing left for me. And when it becomes apparent that there is real financial difficulty, my husband just states that,"It will be okay" without actually trying to fix anything. I'm the only one that understands that there is a real problem and that just going on with our life as usual isn't going to solve anything. I'm the one digging through the back alleys trying to salvage our finances, while hubby goes home to watch tv and play on his computer.

It's not a very nice dream. And probably not entirely fair to my husband. He is much younger than me and basically went from living with his parents to living with me. He has had neither the time nor the experience to learn as much about finances as I have. But that doesn't make me feel any better, and although it explains things, it doesn't fix them. And I'm just tired of denying myself and excusing him from his mistakes.

I'm tired of being "good".

Update 3/31/11: While we still have a fair amount of credit card debt, it is less than it was. And my husband is truly working to try and get rid of it entirely. And I have started spending a little money on things just for me. Used books don't cost much, and they make my life much more bearable.